The present invention relates to computer methods, systems and computer program products that collect, store, organize, archive, catalog, retrieve and/or manage digital content.
It is often desirable to capture and organize digital photographs, images, audio, video and other types of digital media files to preserve important memories, to secure data and/or to retain representations of events or objects of interest. In this regard, digital cameras, scanners, camcorders and other devices allow users the ability to capture, download and store such digital content on a general purpose personal computer (PC). However, there is typically no consistency or standard in how each device locates, organizes and stores its digital content within the directory structure of the user's computer. Often times, the organization of the corresponding media files is left to the discretion of the user.
Moreover, if the user's computer has access to a network, e.g., the Internet, the user can search for media files and download such content onto their computer. Again however, the organization and location of downloaded media files is often left to the discretion of the user. A computer can accumulate a substantial amount of digital media files in the above manners, and as such, there is the potential that such digital content is not well organized and thus cumbersome to secure, locate and/or retrieve.
Software products are currently available that attempt to assist users in organizing media by providing disk indexers. Disk indexers typically scan a hard disk to identify and index the location of images, sound, and video files, etc., located on the hard disk during the scan. The media files themselves are not moved or reorganized. Accordingly, the disk indexer also typically provides software that attempts to keep the created index and the actual contents of the corresponding hard disk in sync with each other. However, in practice, it is quite easy to confuse the indexer software, e.g., by relocating the files on the hard disk, so that the index loses track of the actual location of some of the media files. Moreover, the index and corresponding data are typically stored in one or more database files. Database files are inherently proprietary formats. If the user loses access to the database program of the corresponding disk indexer, the information in the database file likely becomes inaccessible. The database program of the disk indexer is also often effectively lost if copied (or restored) to a machine that is not licensed to use the database of the disk indexer.